My friend and fellow Savannah commentator Bill Dawers has a post up on his blog regarding what he views as surprisingly high ticket prices for the just-announced Veterans Day concert by John Cougar Mellencamp at the Johnny Mercer Theater.
Bill felt the pricing structure of this show was too rich for his blood, as it is for mine as well. I am playing a gig that night myself, but if I were not otherwise engaged, I’d skip this show at those rates too.
I’ve seen Mellencamp before, and, truth be told, I left the event with MUCH more respect for him as a stage performer and songwriter than I’d ever had before (but significantly less for him as a person, as a result of the demeaning way in which he treated his AMAZING bandmates, who were busting their asses for the expressed purpose of making him look good).
Bill found an odd dichotomy in the way the generally perceived image of JCM as some sort of “man of the people” or “salt of the earth” character failed to jibe with the pretty damn high price he was asking for a show that’s taking place in what he often refers to as his adopted hometown.
However, to those who have followed his career since he first (didn’t quite) burst on the scene as a makeup-wearing glam rocker (in a sort of Stacey Keach-meets-David Bowie mold under the flat-out cringeworthy stage name “Little Johnny Cougar”) he has always played the role of being a friend to the little man with simple wants, needs and desires: a straight-up heartland prince with a James Dean-esque rebellious streak.
Yet privately, he is, in reality, a fairly narcissistic blowhard with a penchant for largesse and a taste for the luxurious - which is in direct odds with his carefully crafted aw-shucks “Bulworth with nicotine-stained fingers and a permanent seat at the soda counter” mystique.
When all’s said and done, and we’re through looking at his above-average painting skills and impressively virile hairline, he’s just another one of those aging, coke-ravaged rock stars (like The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and others) who came to the sad and opportunistic conclusion that if their devoted fans were increasingly willing to pay scalpers exorbitant prices for tickets to their shows, then they (the artists) should be receiving that money themselves.
So they jacked up their minimum performance guarantees to automatically force the promoters who take the risk on presenting their concerts to raise the ticket prices as high as they can possibly imagine, passing that artificially inflated cost on to the fans.
It’s just lame. And, as Bill Dawers hints at, shows The Coug’s true colors when it comes to caring for the folks who have kept him in the finer things for decades now.
Contrast that with folks like Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, the Pixies and Pearl Jam (among others) who could EASILY gouge their diehard, ceaselessly loyal followers for tons of money at the box office, but instead routinely spend their time and cash trying to come up with creative ways to both thwart the scalping industry and give their most ardent fans access to the best seats at reasonable prices.
For example, Pixies fans who’d signed up for free e-mail alerts about their concerts received a special message a few weeks ago telling them that in the next minute or so, there would be an advance pre-sale of the closest and “best” seats at every single one of the dates on their upcoming fall tour in celebration of their bestselling, landmark LP Doolittle (listen to a recent recording of the band playing that entire AMAZING album [plus all the B-sides and outtakes from its original recording sessions] live on stage in Brussells HERE).
Essentially, rather than scattering decent, earmarked seats throughout the crowd (as most artist’s fan-club pre-sales do), the Pixies merely designated the orchestra pits directly in front of the stage as reserved for their motivated fans, and offered those great seats on a first-come, first-served basis, doled out in the order in which the tickets were sold through their own private online server.
The seats cost no more than any other top-tier seats, and they must be picked up at the venue by showing ID which matches the credit card order, thus making scalping extremely difficult and laborious. They also printed up a limited-edition T-shirt that will not be for sale anywhere, and one of those will be given out free at the box office with each of these special pre-sale orders.
Cool, huh?
Yep. But it takes, nerve, money, time and a strong desire to do something polite and appreciative for your fans.
Plus, dropping this opportunity on your e-mail list with no real warning makes it something of a fun proposition to try and grab a killer seat and a special shirt on the fly before they’re all gone.
If you aren’t quick enough, at least you didn’t sit around waiting for days or hours for that moment when the floodgates opened, only to learn you’d been instantly scooped by sleazy scalpers with automatic ordering software or indecisive goofballs standing ahead of you in line who take up valuable time scrutinizing seating charts like they’re donut varieties at Krispy Kreme while the most desirable seats are sold off in a flash before you even get to the window.
Now, in all fairness, Little Johnny Cougar offers something similar to his fans, which he calls a “VIP Package.”
However, it’s different in one key respect: Um, it’s like, bullshit and stuff.
When it comes to the Pixies, the mere act of signing up on their free mailing list gets you a the opportunity to get the closest seats in the house and a free, exclusive T-shirt a week before the rest of the seats even go on sale to the general public.
According to Mr. “I was born in a smalltown,” for the ridiculous price of… wait for it… $250, you get the following:
One reserved ticket located in the first 10 rows of the stage • Exclusive John Mellencamp Concert shirt • Collectible tour poster (limited, Numbered) • Limited vinyl copy of John Mellencamp’s new album No Better Than This • Commemorative Tour Laminate
Now, the seat and the shirt are roughly equal to what the Pixies offer. The tour poster is arguably worth about $15 tops. The same vinyl copy of his new album can be ordered brand-new through Amazon.com for $16, and the “Commemorative Tour Laminate” is a piece of plastic-covered paper worth roughly three bucks whose value will not increase and will not be considered a serious collectible by anyone who knows about such things.
So really, the only thing the extra $125 gets you (because, yes, the standard price for seats nearest to the stage at this show is $125 to begin with - before adding in service fees!) is a snicker from The Coug and a glimmer in the eye of his accountant.
I’m pretty sure in this case, VIP stands for Very Ignorant Patsy.
It’s worth mentioning at this point that many are assuming this extension of his already lengthy tour for the No Better Than This LP is something of an “Alimony Tour” designed to rake in as much of a payday as humanly possible to hand directly to his newly divorced ex-wife (it appears he was cheating on her with actress Meg Ryan).
When it comes to cats like Dylan, Waits and the handful of others who really do make sincere efforts to keep their prices somewhere South of outrageous while making the experience of purchasing tickets to see them even slightly fun, I don’t mind spending my hard-won money on their appearances, because they show by their actions that they are cognizant of and care for the needs of their audience, and especially their devoted supporters.
